


still now you're waiting to grow

by thatsparrow



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 15:44:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19088095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsparrow/pseuds/thatsparrow
Summary: Frank's just finishing up a job in South Carolina when he gets the idea to turn the car south.





	still now you're waiting to grow

**Author's Note:**

> title from "song for myla goldberg" by the decemberists

Frank's just finishing up a job in South Carolina when he gets the idea to turn the car south. There are enough bullet casings on the floor and under the seats of the Toyota to string up around a Christmas tree—his hands still red from knuckle to wrist with the night's work—but he only takes the time to pick up a large coffee from a 24-hour drive-thru before merging onto I-95. Sunrise isn't too far off at this point but he's still got that post-battle adrenaline singing loud in his blood, the shit that'd turn the hands jittery of a less practiced man, and he figures he might as well ride it out while it lasts, might as well shave a couple hours off the drive before stopping to sleep. He'll need some kind of place to wash up, too—a motel shower if he can find one but he'll settle for the sink in a gas station bathroom if that's the best he can get. So long as it's something with running water and a drain to rinse the blood out from under his nails.

He gets the dawn sun in through the driver's side window not long after he crosses the Georgia-Florida border and keeps going a few more hours before he pulls over outside some hick town on the 301 called Lawtey. Takes the exit and wheels into the parking lot of a rundown motel called—no shit—Sleepy Hollow Motel, like he's gonna wake up to see some dick in a pumpkin mask riding past the window, mouth stretched out like a sideways gap and teeth carved to ninety-degree angles. (But then that gets him thinking about Lisa and Frank Jr. at the kitchen table, him with pulp-coated seeds up to his elbows while they'd stenciled on designs. Maria used to sprinkle the insides of the jack-o-lanterns with cinnamon before they went out on the stoop, smelling like pumpkin pie once the candles were lit. Maybe the motel name's not so funny after all.)

It's late enough in the morning that they've started running the coffee maker in the lobby, but early enough still that the sleepy-eyed teenager at the front desk doesn't look at him too closely, just swaps Frank's money over the counter for a key to the empty single at the end of the row. He looks too old for high school and too young for college, hair hanging shaggy over his eyes, and if he notices any of the red-brown stains dug into the creases of Frank's hands, he doesn't react. Frank likes that about one-story motels and late-night convenience stores—the way strangeness lives in between the aisles and under the beds, the certainty that a half-sleepwalking bruiser won't be the weirdest shit they've ever seen.

The air in the room is already going muggy when he shoulders open the door, syrup-thick around his ankles and stuffing up his head with cotton. He stays awake just long enough to turn on the fan and bolt the chain across the door before passing out on top of the coverlet, too tired to even give a shit about how filthy the thing probably is.

Fucking Florida.

 

—

 

He checks the clock when he wakes up and sees it's six hours later, early afternoon and the sun beating heavy against the pulled-shut curtains. Dust settles around his feet as he heads to the bathroom, porcelain cracked at the edge of the tub like a chipped tooth. There's soap scum dried into the corners of the tile but the water pressure's decent—beats around his head and shoulders with the strength a midwest rainstorm, all _Shawshank Redemption_ like. Sweat and dirt and the blood of a dozen dead nazi punks washes down the drain, the water going muddy brown where it swills around his heels and toes. Good riddance.

Outside, the shadows have turned to smudges in the motel parking lot with the sun straight overhead, short brushstrokes of black against the pavement. A half-hour later, Frank's back in the car with his shit packed up from the motel, hair still half damp against his neck and a call put through to Curtis' buddy for the name and address of where he's going. _Lou's Dive Shop_. Sounds charming in a tourist beach sort of way—the kind of place that'd have an out-of-tune uke up on the wall and a discount t-shirt rack with slogans like _It's Five-O-Clock Somewhere,_ or _One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor_. Cheesy, simple, tropical-colored shit. Good. It's what the kid deserves.

He hits Tampa about four and keeps pushing past per the directions until he gets to St. Petersburg. (Thinks briefly of the preacher collar buttoned up tight around Pilgrim's throat and then leaves the thought behind when he pulls up next to an RAV 4x4 driven by an tanned-orange frat boy.) Takes him another twenty minutes of wrong turns until he catches sight of Lou's Dive Shop a few blocks up from the beach, this bright banana-yellow awning hung over the door like a stretched-out piece of taffy. There's a wood-carved turtle sitting in the window and some on-sale swimsuits parked on a rack outside and it's a far cry from where Frank ever sees himself settling down, but it seems good for the kid. Neon-colored clothes, and the seaside smell of salt and sunscreen, and hours whittled away playing babysitter to a bunch of tourists. Nothing else to worry over except sunburns or some pissy Nebraska dad leaving a one-star Yelp review. Even odds that she hasn't seen a gun since coming down here, and that's how it should be.

Frank doesn't know what sort of news they get in St. Petersburg or whether there are any internet junkies who might recognize him—even if he has let his beard grow back some—so he parks the Toyota across the street until Lou's closes. Thumbs through a secondhand Elmore Leonard most of the afternoon and only stretches his legs far enough to pick up a late lunch from the taco joint down the block. He's just cleaning a smear of salsa from his thumb when he sees the door to Lou's push open and a handful of folks heading out, mostly young and moving easy. Amy's at the back talking to some woman in a blue-and-orange hawaiian shirt, and Frank can see her laughing even from where he's posted up outside the car. She's cut her hair to the shoulders and dyed the ends of it bright purple—that's not the move of someone who's still sleeping with one eye open. It makes her look young, happy, relaxed, miles away from the sharp-toothed front she'd been putting on in Michigan, hackles up, all bite. The purple suits her.

He whistles—not so loud to get the whole street looking, but clear enough to catch the attention of someone who lives with their head on a swivel. Amy glances around at the noise, quick and casual, and he sees the way she stops when she catches him leaning against the hood of the Toyota, eyes narrowing like she's trying to suss out whether he's a stranger or a trick of the mind. Some sunny day mirage like the haze of water on highway blacktop. He nods over at her and that slows her steps, sparks her curiosity enough that she splits off from the others, waves an excuse over her shoulder as she turns back toward the shop, waiting until they've rounded the corner before jaywalking towards the car. She's never seen him with the beard, and so it takes her maybe a moment longer before recognition clicks, before she's barreling into him like a shot. Pulls him into a hug tight enough that he could feel it through kevlar, her face buried into the crook of his neck and arms locked tight around his shoulders.

"Yeah, kid," Frank says into her hair. "I missed you, too."

It's another moment before she pulls away, then slugs her fist into his arm, sharp and bruising. There's a thin line of water ringing her lower lashes. "Jesus, Frank, where the _fuck_ have you been?"

"Kid—"

"What, are you allergic to a fucking phone, now? Six months of radio silence and it's only thanks to Curtis I knew you were even alive. Six months and you couldn't spare five minutes every now and then to call?"

"Yeah, no, shit—you're right, kid. I wasn't meaning to leave you in the lurch." He glances away, feeling almost sheepish at the way she's looking at him, all schoolteacher disapproval. "I guess I'm not used to having people miss me."

She doesn't look won over, but she does soften up some of the sharp edges in her expression. If nothing else, she doesn't look like she's thinking of hitting him again, which he'll take.

"So, what's going on? Why now? Is something wrong?" Her brows pull together, hands going a little fidgety, like maybe they're missing the weight of the gun. She takes a quick look around the street as if she's searching for some asshole with an AK who's gonna start putting bullets in the side of the Toyota. "You're okay, right? Did something happen with the Schultzes, or that preacher guy?"

Frank shakes his head. Rests his own hands in his pockets and leans back easy against the car. "No, nothing like that. Just had a bit of time to kill, you know? Figured I could take a vacation—get some sun, spend the day on the beach, shit like that."

"The Punisher takes vacations?"

"No, but _Frank_ does—and you'd better quit it with that Punisher shit if you don't want him getting back in the car and rethinking this whole thing."

Amy laughs. Even early on, she'd seen clear through his bullshit. She takes a seat next to him on the hood of the Toyota. "How long are you in town for?"

There's another group of skinheads up in Tennessee that he'd been meaning to visit, but nothing that can't wait a few days. "Long enough."

"Good—then we're getting dinner and catching up. Or coffee, at least." She grins. "I know a place around the corner that's good, strong enough to knock even _you_ on your ass." She nudges him, her elbow digging in under his ribs. "Besides, you owe me—I wanna know what you've been up to for the last six months."

Frank nods, pushes off the hood, smiling wide even without him meaning to. "Yeah, kid, of course. Coffee sounds good."

 

—

 

Amy walks the two of them over to a small cafe on the water, a half-dozen umbrella-shadowed tables outside overlooking the bay. It's decently busy inside but not overwhelmingly so—a handful of college kids and twenty-somethings posted up on laptops, a couple of moms chatting in the corner, some guy at the counter in a t-shirt with tattoos up his forearms. Amy orders for them both—Frank doesn't argue; lord knows they spent enough late nights together that she knows how he takes his—and then she's steering them to the tables outside, settling under a circle of shade from one of the umbrellas. They're on the right side of Florida to see the sun setting over the water, streaks of pink and orange over the bay like they've been painted there, and the whole thing is—nice. Wholesome, even. Amy's got a pair of blue-tinted sunglasses sitting low on her nose, shoes propped up on the opposite chair, smiling easy as she stirs up the ice at the bottom of her cup. She's alert but not skittish, aware without being afraid, and that warms Frank to see. A different metric of improvement, but progress nonetheless.

" _So—_ " Amy says, stretching out the word until it's got a dozen extra syllables in it, "tell me more about you. Where have you been? What have you been up to? Other than forgetting to shave."

"Yeah, I've been meaning to cut it." The coffee is strong and sharp in his throat, like pressing his tongue to a live wire. Between it and the early morning nap, he's likely to be up the rest of the night. Across the table, Amy is looking at him all expectant; six months and she still hasn't learned a lick of patience. "Ah, I don't know, kid. You know me—it's all the same shit, just different assholes. Been traveling through the south and the midwest, mostly, trying to weed out this alt-right bullshit wherever I can— _white pride_ tattoos and swastikas on synagogues, shit like that."

"And, what? None of these nazis owned a phone?"

"You're still on that?"

"Six months, Frank. Six fucking _months_. Yeah, I'm still on that."

He looks down, swilling the cup in his hand until waves are rippling across the top. "Look, I am sorry about that, kid. Truly. I did think about getting your new number from Curtis everytime I passed a payphone, but—" he cuts off, takes another long sip to fill up the silence. Should've known better than to think she'd let him off so easy.

"But?"

"I didn't want to—interrupt, I guess. Interfere. Wanted to let you get yourself settled without being reminded of—" well, shit, _any_ of it. "But I didn't plan on leaving it quite so long. Certainly didn't mean for you to think I'd forgotten you or anything."

"Yeah, well," she toes his leg from other side of the table, "don't do that again. At least send me a postcard or something. Because if I go another six months without hearing from you, I'm finding out where you are from Curtis and I'm coming after you myself."

Frank laughs. "Understood."

She smiles back at him, squinting her eyes a little against the light. She's gotten a tan since she's been here; there's a stretch of peeling skin on her nose from an old sunburn, pale brown underneath. "So that's it, then? Six months of beating up white supremacists? Jesus, no wonder you look so shitty." He scratches at the rough edge of his beard; it is starting to go a little long. "There's gotta be something else—what about the blonde in New York? You know, the one with the big doe eyes who helped you escape. Karen, or something?"

He looks away. "Karen, yeah."

Amy nudges him again under the table, the toe of her sneaker against his knee. "Come on, man. She looked about ready to fuck you in that hospital bed—"

Frank chokes on his coffee. " _Jesus_ , kid."

"—and that was even with you looking beaten half to shit. Something must've happened with you two, right?"

He shakes his head, looking at anything but the shit-eating grin Amy's giving him. Who the fuck taught her to look so smug? "No, smartass. Nothing happened. Nothing's _gonna_ happen. Karen's going places, and I'm not interested in dragging her down with my mess."

"That sounds like bullshit."

"Yeah, like you know so much." She rolls her eyes at him, mouths something under her breath that sounds like, _know more than you, at least_ , but he doesn't call her on it. "Anyway, enough about me. I'm boring. Tell me about you—how's Florida been treating you? Discover any sunken treasure yet?"

She laughs a little. "No—I wish, but no. It's good, mostly. A little quiet, sometimes a little boring, but not in a bad way, you know? Peaceful, almost. I like the dive shop, and Lou—Curtis' buddy—is cool. Kind of quiet, but dependable, reassuring. He reminds me a lot of Curtis, actually. I got certified for scuba, so that's what I do most days, taking out groups of tourists and the occasional local to the reefs." Amy smiles, bright as the sun off the water. "Colors like you wouldn't _believe_ and the water there stays clear for sixty feet down. The tourists usually get fidgety around the sharks, but I love them. Like big underwater puppies with a few more rows of teeth. But they're just doing their own thing, you know? Minding their own business and it's not like they asked to get such a bad rep." She looks up at him, grinning. "They kind of remind me of you, actually. Although—sharks only kill, like, fifteen people a year, and you're _way_ worse than that."

He snorts. "Thanks, kid."

"I've never spent so much time on the water like this, though—not frigid like up north but _warm_ , enough so that you don't need a wetsuit or anything. There's a kind of freedom to it, you know? Like, there was this story a couple years ago about a woman who swam to Florida from the Bahamas—I think—which is so fucking far and there's no _way_ I'd do anything like that, but—it's nice feeling like I _could_ , if I wanted to." Some of the condensation from her cup has dripped down to the table and she traces patterns through it with her finger, staining the wood dark brown underneath.

"I'm living in an apartment not far from the dive shop with some girl from Craigslist. Relax—" she says, waving away the lecture that's waiting on Frank's tongue, "I did my homework. She's safe. A little bit of a dick, sometimes, but just in terms of, like, leaving her dishes in the sink or waking me up when she gets back late. Normal roommate shit." She clears her throat. "And I've, uh—started seeing someone? This girl named Lena who works at a tattoo parlor in town." Even through her tan, Frank can see her going a little pink. She looks nervous but happy, and he likes seeing her so content. Feels proud, even. This flare of warmth in his stomach and he wonders if this is what it would've been like if Lisa had grown a little older, seeing her off on middle-school dates or taking prom photos.

"Yeah? That's good, kid. It's great. I'm happy to see you doing well."

Amy smiles. "Yeah, me too. It still feels funny, sometimes, given what was going on, like, seven months ago, but it's starting to seem a little less fake. Like something that could last." She's nearly done with her own drink, chips down at some of the ice with the bottom of her straw. "Anyway, if you're gonna be in town for a few days, maybe we could get dinner? You, me, and Lena, I mean. I think you'd like her." The offer catches him off guard, and he must stay silent for a moment too long because the pink in her cheeks flushes darker. "Never mind, it was just an idea. We don't have to. You're not my dad, or whatever, and you've got other shit going on—"

"No, dinner sounds good," Frank says, smiling broad. "Sounds great, actually."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, kid. You think I'd miss the chance to take out you and your girlfriend? Come on."

She nods, looking relieved. Then she grins. "Are you gonna shave first?"

God, she's such a teenager. "Yes, kid, I will shave first. Hell, I'll even put on a shirt that has buttons."

Her expression is light, teasing, but he can see the earnestness underneath. This matters to her, so it matters to him.

It's dark by the time they call it a night, the block lit up orange from the streetlamps overhead. Amy offers him a place on their couch but he waves her off, sure she can't afford much from the money she's making and not inclined to take up whatever space she and her roommate have left. She pulls him in for another hug before she goes, holding him there like she needs to feel him breathing, needs to reassure herself that he's here and alive.

"So we'll see you tomorrow night, then? You'll meet us at the restaurant?"

"Scout's honor."

Amy nods, looking at him steady for another moment before she smiles and turns, heading off down the sidewalk, leaving him at the door of the Toyota. There are times when he's made that same promise and—without wanting to—has left it broken.

Frank feels a certain kind of lucky that, this time, he gets to keep it.


End file.
